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The Great Iternational Yacht Races, 



By SAMUEL R. REED. 




TOE AMERICAN YACHT "VOLUKTKEK.'' 

Published by GEO. P. HOUSTON, Cincinnati, O. 

1887. 

COI'YIiUaiTKD. 



The Great International Yacht Races. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. 

The race of the Thistle and Volunteer will be the seventh of the 
British trials to win back the Royal Yacht Squadron prize cup, 
which was won by the schooner America, against the squadron of 
fourteen British yachts, in the race around the Isle of Wight, in 
1851. Four of these trials were from Great Britain, two from Cana- 
dian yachts. In order to keep the international character, a post- 
script rule was made, that the competing yacht must have come 
over the ocean by sail. 

Till 1870, the British made no attempt to recover the cup. That 
year Mr. Asbury came over with the schooner Cambria, which sailed 
against the New York squadron, as the America had done against 
the Royal Yacht, and was beaten. He built the schooner Livonia for 
a trial next year. The New York Club selected the yacht to com- 
pete, two of the five races being run by the keel schooner Sappho 
and three by the centerboard schooner Columbia. Only m the fifth 
race did Livonia come in ahead, the Columbia having an accident to 
her rigging. 

The next challenge was in 1876, by the Canadian schooner-yacht 
Countess of Dufferin. The agreed races were for the best two in 
three, the New York Club to name the one yacht to run. They 
were won by the centerboard schooner Madelaine. The next was in 
1881, by the Canadian centerboard sloop, Atlanta, built on Lake On- 
tario. The Club named the centerboard sloop. Mischief, which won 
in the first two. 

The next was a double-barrel challenge for the cutters Genesta 
and Galatea, of the R. Y. C, in 1885, the second to run if the first 
failed to get the prize. These vessels were designed by Mr. Beavor 
Webb, with intent to beat the Americans. This, and the reports of 
the Genesta's success in British waters, notified the Americans that 
the prize was in jeopardy. They were equal to the emergency. 
The New York Club ordered the building of an iron centerboard 
sloop, the Priscilla, for this race, designed by Mr. A. Carey Smith. 
The Eastern Yacht Club, of Boston, announced that it would come 
in with a centerboard sloop, designed by Burgess Bros., which was 
named the Puritan. 

The international contest had now become exciting and expensive. 
For, besides the cost of building a new yacht each year for this race, 
the expei.se of the race itself is not less than $25,000. The Galatea did 
not come over in that year. A trial of the Puritan with the Priscilla 
resulted in the selection of her to run with the Genesta, which she 
completed by winning the first two, each of forty miles; one inside, 
by 16m. 19s. corrected time; one outside, by Im. 28s., corrected time. 



2 THE GREAT INTERNATIONAL YACHT RACES. 

This close work seemed to prove that the Genesta would have beaten 
any other of the American yachts. 

The margin was too narrow for security, and it was thought nec- 
essary to build a new yacht to contend with the Galatea, which was 
to come next year, 1886. Again did Boston come to the rescue, 
with a new centerboard slooj), the Mayjioiver, designed also by Mr. 
Edward Burgess. She was tried with three other of the most pow- 
erful yachts — the Puritan, the Priscilla, with her defects altered, and 
the Atlantic. The trial proved the Mayflower's superiority. 

The races with the Galatea were, as before, for the best two in 
three. Tne first, called the inner course — an all round course of 
thirty-eight miles — was won by the Mayfloiver by 12m. 28s., correct- 
ed time. The second race was on the outside course, twenty miles to 
windward. The Mayfloiver gained decidedly in going to windward, 
while the wind lasted, but then a calm and a fog broke up the race. 
The third race, of twenty miles out and back, was won by the May- 
flower by 29m. 9s., corrected time. 

THE THISTLE AND VOLUNTEER. 

These performances, instead of giving the international contest 
a rest, have excited it to greater efforts It brought this year, a 
challenge from the R. Y. Club, naming the Thistle, designed by Mr. 
G. L. Watson, and owned by a syndicate of men, who built her es- 
pecially to take the America's cup. The builder made a mystery of 
her shape, excluding all outsiders from the yard, and cloaking her 
in canvas in launching. This mystery has generated many absurd 
fancies, especially since she arrived on this side, in the heads of the 
New York newspaper reporters, whose conjectures of a wind-blad- 
der contrivance under her bottom to lift her, and of a triangular 
fixed centerboard, and other wonderful things, sound more like 
small boys, who have seen no water larger than a green frog pond, 
than like the "old salts" which they think themselves. 

It became known that the Thistle's designer had made a decided 
departure from the old British form of the yacht, by giving her 
twenty feet three inches beam, which is five feet three inches more 
than the Genesta and Galatea. The British had clung to the idea of 
the narrow and deep — the "knife-blade" hull, as it is called — against 
the American broad and shallow hull — the "skimming dish,-" as it is 
called — in the face of their repeated defeats by the shallow, broad, 
centerboard yachts. 

But here was a departure from the British form, and an ap- 
proach toward the American. As a recognition of the American 
idea, it was a thing to brag of; but it brought, also, the perception 
that this important addition to the "bearings," together with the 
deep fulcrum of the ballast in her lead keel, would make her power- 
ful to carry sail. As much as fifty per cent, sail carrying power 
could be reckoned over that of the Galatea, with not near so much 
increase of cross-section resistance of the hull. 

It was recognized that the existing yachts did not make secure 
the keeping of the cup. Again did Boston come to the rescue; a 



THE GREAT INTERNATIONAL YACHT RACES. 



public spirited citizen, General Payne, the owner of the Mayflower, 
building a new steel centerboard yacht, the Volunteer, designed by 
Burgess, especially to meet the Scotch Thistle. The Thistle, before 




THE SCOTCU YACHT "THISTLE." 



coming over, outsailed the best of the British yachts. The Volun- 
teer has outsailed the Mayfloiuer, Puritan and Priscilla, proving her- 
self decidedly superior. 

This in brief is the history, and this the present situation which 
combine to make the coming race the most interesting of all. It 
will be observed with excitement by both worlds, and will for the 
time transcend all political events and agitations. The Thistle's 
coming has evidently weakened the confidence of the New York 
yachtmen, and they are more inclined to put their money on the 
Thistle than on the Volunteer. 



4 THE GREAT INTERNATIONAL YACHT RACES. 

PROGRESS OF AMERICAN YACHTING. 

The history of American yachting is creditable. The British 
thought that Britannia ruled the waves in pleasure ships as much 
as in the fighting and carrying navies. They were surprised, when 
in 1851, the year of the World's Fair in London, Commodore Stevens 
brought over the America, designed by George Steers and owned 
by several Americans, and challenged the whole Royal Yacht Club. 

The boldness of it, and some glimpses of the America's sailing, 
struck them with panic. The America was admitted to the R. Y. 
Club hospitalities, but could get no race. She posted a general 
challenge, for any sum from a thousand guineas to ten thousand, 
and she made special challenges, but could get no race, except one 
with the Titania for one hundred Pounds, which she easily won. 
She was after big money to pay her expenses, but could not get it. 
She was about to come home, but at much urgency decided to enter 
for the regatta at which the Royal Yacht Club cup was the prize. 

The America "distanced" the whole squadron of fourteen, which 
started out of seventeen entries. Mr. Steers gave the prize cup to 
the New York Club in trust, to hold, to be sailed for as the prize of 
international championship. Whoever takes it will have to hold it 
in the same trust. The cup is a tall pitcher or vase with a handle, 
elaborately wrought. It may have cost twenty guineas. It is now 
costing the public spirited American keepers not less than $100,000 
a year. 

The America is a keel schooner, not much variation from the 
model of the New York pilot boats of that time, which had become 
famous for sailing and weatherly qualities. She had none of the 
great kites which the yachts have for light and fair winds. But she 
gave the British yachtmen a new idea of the set of sails, hers hold- 
ing flat, enabling her to sail close to the wind, while theirs were 
baggy. She is still afloat, owned by General Butler, and is still 
about in the races, sailing as an outsider in some of them, but is 
outsailed by the big, singlemasted yachts of recent construction. 

The British fancy was that their yachting was on the deep sea 
and that the American was near the shore. But the boldest and 
most remarkable of all yachting was the race of the schooner yachts 
Henrietta, Fleetiovn.g and Vesta, in racing rig^ across the Atlantic in 
midwinter, starting December 11, 1866 — the Henrietta, with her 
owner, J. G. Bennett, making her passage of 3,106 miles in thirteen 
days, twenty-one hours and fifty -one minutes; the Vesta — the only 
centerboard of the three — having outsailed both till near the coast^ 
when she lost the race by a mistake in navigating. After this 
plucky performance their was a shrinkage of the British conceit, 
that theirs was the j^achting of the deep. 

More important than any matter of National pride in these races 
is the fact that tliese competitive trials are bringing about on each 
side a change in the form of hull bj^ which the American "skim- 
ming-dish" and the English "knife-blade" models are approaching 
each other. Already has this wide departure in adding more than 
five feet to the beam of the English hull, and the superiority which 



THE GREAT INTERNATIONAL YACHT RACES. 



the Thistle has shown, decreed a revolution in English yacht build- 
ing, and consigned to a state of obsoleteness a great fleet of yachts. 

On our side, each one of the Burgess designs — the Puritan, the 
Mayfioiver and the Volunteer — has moved toward the English form 
in depth, and in the base of an outer keel for a part of the length, 
in addition to the centerboard. The Puritan, Mayflower and Volun- 
teer are respectively 23, 23. 6^, and 23.6 feet beam. The Genesta and 
Galatea are but 15 feet beam, but are each of 13.6 draft. The draft 
of the Priscilla is 7.9 feet, while her beam is 22.5 feet. The Puritan's 
draft is 8.2 feet. The Mayflower's draft is 9.9 feet; the Volunteer's 10 
feet. 

This shows in Mr. Burgess a tendency to an increase in depth, 
while retaining the American width. Each of these has been swift- 
er than the preceding. Whether Mr. Burgess can go on year after 
year, designing yachts a little swifter, is an interesting question. 
But it may be set down as certain, that if the Thistle takes the cup, 
he will make as large an advance toward the British keel-cutter 
form in his next design as Mr. Webb made toward the American 
form in the Thistle. 

The names cutter and sloop, as a distinction, are a confusion. 
InlAmerica, the single mast, fore-and-aft rig is called the sloop rig; 
in England, the cutter. The schooner rig is the handier, especially 
for sea-going, but the contest has now become fine between single- 
masted rigging, as giving the highest speed at all points. The En- 
glish usage applies the name sloop to the American shallow hull 
and centerboard, and calls their deep hull the cutter. As these 
names properly describe the rig, all these single-masted yachts are 
cutters and all sloops. 

The following sketches of the midship sections will give a cor- 
rect idea of the difference between the British "cutter" and the Amer- 
ican "sloop." The narrow form in the first is a correct sketch of the 
Galatea. That which overlies it gives correctly the wider beam of 
the Thistle and the depth, but the other change of shape is conjec- 
tural, save that of necessity, she is not so wall sided as the Galatea. 
Let it be remembered that the Galatea's beam is 15 feet, the Thistle's 
20.3 feet, the Mayflower's 23.6|- feet. 

The sketch below is a correct 
representation of the Mayflower's 
midship section: 





All yachts of the same rig are alike in pictures, but the cut above. 



6 THE GREAT INTERNATIONAL YACHT RACES. 

and that on the cover, will give a correct idea of the rig of these 
yachts in the regular sails. Besides these they have a lot of big and 
little kites for light winds and fair winds. The sprit top-sail in the 
cut is a kite for a breeze; there is a regular gaff top-sail for a wind. 

A lot of British yachts has been made obsolete by the Thistle's 
performance, following the fact that they were inferior to the Amer- 
ican in speed. Volunteer's performance has reduced a lot of Ameri- 
can great yachts to a second class, and their type to obsoleteness; 
and the probability is that Mr. Burgess' evolving mind is forecast- 
ing a revolution in the American model, even if it should not be ex- 
pedited by a victory of the Thistle over the Volunteer. 

A further advance on ''cutter" lines is in a compromise keel. 
The Puritan has keel and centerboard, and outside lead ballast. 
The Mayfloiuer has more of the same, each one increasing the pro- 
portion of keel ballast to inside ballast. The Volunteer's steel sides 
and frames are extended down to form a trough or hollow keel, run- 
ning from the centerboard box to the stern post, and running from 
that box'forward, till it scarfs out. This is filled with lead melted 
and run in, making a part keel, and carrying the lead without inju- 
ry to the structure of the hull. Her keel ballast is fifty tons, inside 
ballast ten tons. 

The Mayfloiver's keel ballast is thirty-seven tons, inside ballast 
fourteen tons. But the keel ballast is — at least in part — bolted on 
to the outside of the bottom, Avhereby it is not so deep as in the Vol- 
unteer's steel trough, besides the marring of the lines, and the injury 
to the bottom by this bolting. 

KEELS vs. CENTERBOARDS. 

This brings to view the essential part which the recent invention 
of ballast under the bottom has taken in the racing of yachts, and 
its bearing on the proportions of depth, and on the relative advan- 
tages of keel and centerboard. 

Boys have always applied lead ballast on the keels of their min- 
iature sail boats, but only within a few years has it been applied to 
sail boats for grown men. At first, plates of lead were bolted on the 
bottom. But in the Genesta and Galatea the keels were made hollow 
and filled with lead melted and poured in. This is made more com- 
plete in vessels built of iron, and has been applied in the Volunteer, 
so far as she has a keel. So important is the gain in placing the bal- 
last low and in a deep keel, that it is probable that this has decreed 
that the centerboard must go, because its place is wanted for a keel 
to carry ballast, if not indeed that the shallow model shall go. 

A minor event, which in the present situation has attracted 
much attention, and has given another shake to confidence in the 
skimming dish sloop, is that in a recent race of lesser craft, the Pap- 
oose, a keel-boat built by Burgess, beat by more than twenty min- 
utes in a race of twenty miles, the best centerboard boat of her size 
on the Massachusetts coast. If Burgess can do this in a small "cut- 
ter, ' the question is what might he do in a first class keel yacht, as 
large as the Vohmteer, which is evidently a compromise of his 
ideas. 



THE GREAT INTERNATIONAL YACHT RACES. 7 

The American "sloop" model has a centerboard to make up for 
its shallowness and its lack of keel, in holding against drifting, 
while going "on a wind," i. e., with the wind on or forward of the 
beam. The centerboard is a thin structure of planks which is let 
down through a long trunk or box, amidship, by which a sufficient 
flat surface of resistance to the side drift can be given out. This is 
drawn up when going before the wind, to diminish the resisting 
surface and draft, and because the vessel then steers easier without 
it and because it is of no use. 

As the centerboard makes up in depth for its shortness as a keel, 
it is less obstruction than a keel in "tacking." In a course which 
makes necessary short tacks in "beating" this is important, but is 
of less importance in long stretches, and none at all at sea. It is 
an American invention, which came into general use in the Hud- 
son River sloops, because of the facility in short tacks, and for re- 
ducing the draft. It is used by all sail vessels on the Great Lakes. 
The British yachtmen think there is a mystery in the center- 
board. For instance, when the owner of the Mayflower wanted to 
enter her for this year's races in British waters, the managers re- 
plied that her admission with "unrestricted centerboard" could not 
be allowed. Yet the centerboard is of no advantage as against a 
keel in the courses of the British races, and a restricted centerboard 
would be a queer condition. 

The deep hold which the centerboard has may be seen in the 
draft of the Mayflower, which with centerboard down is twenty feet, 
making over ten feet depth of bare board, perhaps twenty feet wide 
below the hull. The seaboard yachts have no need of the center- 
board to reduce draft, as on the lakes and rivers. It weakens the 
hull and cuts up the interior. As the keel is wanted for ballast, and 
as it can be deepened in the center and abaft — as the Thistle has 
probally done — and scarfed ofi^ forward to give ease in tacking, it is 
probable that the centerboard will go out. 

THE RACES OP 1887 AND AFTER. 

A notable fact is, that while the prize cup is held by the New 
York Club, the vessels that have kept it on this side in the latest 
two races were built in Boston especially to defend the cup, and 
that again a Boston man came to the front when all recognized that 
a faster boat must be built to contend with the Thistle. Whatever 
the event of the race this year, it will not end the international con- 
test, nor the building of yachts to contend for this cup. 

The changes which have been made on both sides, and the 
marked gain by them, and their approach from each extreme to- 
ward each other — the English in beam, the American in depth and 
keel — show plainly the perfected model has not been reached, and 
there is still a space for possible gain. If the Thistle wins, Mr. Bur- 
gess will go deeper with hull and keel in his next design. If the 
Volunteer wins, Mr. Webb will give still more beam to his next de- 
sign, and perhaps will lessen her depth. 
^^|In the new departure on both sides the superiority of either in 



8 I'HE GREAT INTERNATIONAL YACHT RACES. 

the future depends on the best adjustment of the relative properties 
of width, depth, bearings, ballast fulcrum, cross-section, sail power, 
lines of displacement and the rest. Not all of these can be calculated 
with certainty. For example, only by experiment can be determin- 
ed whether a gain is made, or how much gain, by the wide yacht's 
leaning over on her lee bearings, on a wind, lifting out the other 
side. But the contest has brought a cutting loose from old preju- 
dices on both sides, which promises a great advance in the model 
yachts, and a demonstration which will be useful to all shipbuilding. 

Yacht building has created much employment for American 
workmen, and yacht sailing has given many berths to seamen, at 
good wages. The recent growth of steam yachts has added greatly 
to this, and to the country's mechanical resources. The number of 
these is greater than there is general information of. Some of 
these are large ships, capable of circumnavigating the globe. Many 
have a notion that these sailing yachts which are racing for the 
cup are small vessels. They are nearly a hundred feet long and 
measure over a hundred tons, and their long spars and great spread 
of sails require large crews and expert seamanship. 

The confidence of the Thistle's designer in her sail bearing power 
has sparred her about as heavily as the more beamy Mayflower and 
Volunteer. The single mast on which all sail depends in these 
sloops has to be tall, and the bowsprit very long, and the sails are 
very large and require skillful handling. The masts of the Galatea, 
Thistle, Mayfloiver and Volunteer are, respectively, 53, 62, 63, 65 feet; 
the topmasts, 47, 45, 46, 48 feet; the booms, 73, 80, 80, 84; the gaffs, 
45, 50, 50, 52; the bowsprit outboard, 36.6, 38.6, 38, 37; the spinna- 
ker boom, 65.6, 70, 67, 70; the sail area, by N. Y. Y. C. rule, 7,505, 
8,880, 8,634, 9,000. 

The owner of the Galatea told that at first she was heavily sparr- 
ed, and she would lay down and do nothing, and that the reduction 
of her spars helped her speed. Comparing the four vessels in oth- 
er dimensions the area of midship section is relatively 125, 115, 92, 
96 feet; the displacement 157, 135, 110, 116 tons. If the Volunteer 
with midship section of 96, can stand up to her sale area of 9,000 as 
well as the Thistle with her midship section of 115 to her sale area 
8,880, the reckoning would be that the Volunteer would win. 

The American yachtmen, who have been connected with the 
Americans cup races deserve to win because of their public spirit. 
All America hopes that the Volunteer will keep the championship, 
and this would prove her form superior. But if the Thistle shall 
win, it will be by means of a change in the English idea of yacht 
building which the American victories have compelled them to 
make, and which will prove that an advance has been made in the 
form of the hull, which will be a benefit to all shipbuilding, and in 
which America will give John Bull a trial next year in an improve- 
ment on his new American lines. 

The contest is to be in three races, unless decided in the first two, 
and the appointed days are September 27th, 29th and October 1st. 



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